Now in my early fifties, I began reading about UFOs in the 1960s. The first book I read was Flying Saucers Serious Business by Frank Edwards. The book was impressive and taught me that the proof for the existence of Aliens from other worlds was substantial. The entire point of the book was for the author to present evidence to support various UFO cases as having something more than conventional explanations.

One reason I really enjoyed that book was because Frank Edwards was no slouch. He took over as a commentator and host on the Mutual Broadcasting Network replacing Edward R. Murrow, the legendary newsman and broadcaster. During an interview promoting the book he said that when he first decided to tackle the UFO subject, he decided to implement the three source rule that most reporters use to verify a story.

Edwards felt that if he could verify just one UFO incident using that rule, it would prove these objects were not just weather balloons and swamp gas. As it turned out, he found many UFO incidents that could easily be verified in that way. More importantly, he included a number of military encounters with UFOs in the book.

I got the impression that he wanted to drive home the point that, despite government statements to the contrary, members of the military and other trained observers were reporting things they saw on the land, in the sea and in the air that could not be easily identified or explained. Sadly, most of those kinds of reports were two long and complicated to make good copy for newspapers. It was easier to report that some good ole boy saw a pie plate attached to a bottle rocket and thought that Martians were invading our planet.

When the U.S. Air Force completed their Project Blue Book investigation of the UFO phenomenon in 1969-1970, it came as no surprise to me that 95% of the sightings were listed as explainable. It was a fast way to discredit UFO reports from civilians. I grew up in an Air Force family and my father was a retired officer, so I knew what the deal was.

The Air Force didn’t want to publicly discuss the subject of UFOs. Whatever was really going on was a big secret, possibly the biggest, and was going to be kept by a select few. The rest was all hearsay and conjecture. However, the Air Force hierarchy still hated being placed in a position to constantly comment on UFO reports. They hoped that Blue Book would solve that problem by allowing a time out for them to collect reports and have the evidence examined by scientific experts, but it didn’t. Instead, they found themselves saddled with a government study that created more questions than answers.

The Air Force has always been a player in the UFO game, but I never believed that they were in charge of it. If any military service had some sort of governmental jurisdiction over the UFO phenomenon, it was the Navy. Despite appearances, the Navy has always been the most powerful and influential of the U.S. Military Services. The Marine Corps, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office and many other agencies fall under their jurisdiction.

The Navy was the very first branch of the U.S. Military to be organized into a paid, professional organization. Today, they have their own intelligence services, space program and the largest operating budget of any of the branches of the U.S. Military. Most of the alleged heads of secret groups and shadow governments meant to handle the UFO problem were identified as high-ranking U.S. Navy Officers.

My own experience with the U.S. Armed Forces involved the Navy. I served in the Marine Corps during the mid-1970s and had my own set of unique experiences which I will relate later in this book. But that’s jumping too far ahead. Let me back all the way up a bit by saying that I was born late in the marriage of my parents. That was both good and bad. Good, because I didn’t have to deal with most of the relocation and other hassles associated with being born into a family where a career military officer is the primary bread winner. Bad, because I can only recall a brief period of time when my father was active military.

Apart from being an Air Force Officer, my father was a regular guy and great dad. He took me everywhere and provided an experiential education that was equal to what I learned in school. My mother was all for that and did the same. Both my parents believed in education and had college degrees. However, I was an only child and that made my father’s experiences a tough act to follow.

After serving in the Army and on General MacArthur’s Staff in the South Pacific during World War II, my father switched to the Army Air Corps and finally to the Air Force in 1947 when it was born as a separate military entity. For years after he retired, his buddies from the military stopped by for barbeques and other gatherings. It was during those times that I heard a number of stories being told about UFOs.

It seems that UFOs and Aliens were always in the news when I was growing up in the 1960s. Whenever they were, it was a catalyst for my father’s friends to bring up the subject of Flying Saucers and Unidentified Flying Objects. Although my dad didn’t have much use for the topic and didn’t talk much about his military service with me, he was always tolerant when to came to listening to their UFO stories.

Whenever a bunch of my father’s military buddies stopped by, they hung out in our finished basement during the winter or near the barbeque in our back yard during the summer. I found a couple of places in our house where I could sit and hear everything they were saying. It was great! It was also one of the reasons I became so interested in UFOs. That interest hasn’t waned one little bit during the over forty years I have been reading about, researching and investigating them.

Listening to my father and his friends talk about UFOs taught me something important. If you want to find the bone, follow the dog that buried it. If I liken the bone to UFOs and Aliens, I will have to liken the dog to our government and military. No disrespect intended. Nobody loves America more than I do and I have nothing but the greatest respect for members of our military services. As far as elected officials are concerned, not so much.

The simple fact is that the U.S. Government has lots more money and time to devote to the UFO subject than I do. If I begin by following their footsteps, I am bound to get lucky and turn up something. In fact, I have gotten lucky many times over the years by using this method and sticking to the basics of physical evidence, solid witnesses and cases involving high strangeness.

I began investigating UFOs and the Paranormal in High School. I started an afterschool club for extra credit which began immensely popular. Almost from Day One people wanted to tell me their stories of encounters with the unexplained. I wasn't really ready for this and it kind of freaked me out, but at the same time I was intriqued. I gathered a small group of students and teachers together and we started investigating some of the claims that came our way. Although I have held jobs completely unrelated to paranormal investigations, I kept on with it as a hobby and eventually started speaking about it in meetings throughout the USA and Canada. I got the name 'The UFO Guy' because of all the radio interviews I started doing. DJs and Radio Personalities listed me as 'The UFO Guy' on their bulletin boards and online sites as a good guest to have on when it comes to the unexplained.

- The UFO Guy

Introduction

This book represents the shear insanity of real stories and real places that are so bizarre no one wants to believe they exist. I can understand that, but (as the saying goes) some things are true whether we choose to believe them or not. This book represents the greatest hits of all my weirdest stories, places and experiences. I hope you enjoy them all. You can view all my books at http://jsi4.tripod.com/js/storejs.html

-The UFO Guy, 2012

Chapter One: Monsters, Madness and Mayhem: The Mount Misery Story

Mount Misery is the tallest point on Long Island and a place where several towns intersect. A lot of history is packed into that area and not all of it is the kind you would want to see taught in school.

Mount Misery is the tallest point on Long Island and a place where several towns intersect. Millions of commuters pass it each day on the Long Island Expressway and Northern State Parkway as their journey to and from New York City, blissfully unaware of the rich and somewhat sorted history of the place. Just on the Suffolk side of the Nassau and Suffolk County line, Mannetto Hill Road is the western border, while Walt Whitman Road borders the Mount on the eastern side. Mount Misery begins just off of Old Country Road on its southern side and ends at Jericho Turnpike to the north. Although it's only a little over a mile in distance end to end in any direction, a lot of history is packed into that mile and not all of it is the kind you would want to see taught in school.

Settled in the late 1600's, the Mount was the site of a revolutionary war skirmish and home to Walt Whitman, one of America's greatest poets. More like a large hill, the Mount is the highest point on mostly flat Long Island at an unremarkable 400 feet above sea level. The tradition site of the high point is marked on Jayne's Hill by a large stone in West Hills Park. Once rolling meadows, the planting of trees has obscured a view that once extended to Fire Island in one direction and Connecticut in the other.

There are no signs saying, "Welcome to Mount Misery." It's simply a name that the area is known by and one which owners of historic and well-heeled homes wish would go away. There have been many attempts to change the name of Mount Misery Road to a more pleasant designation, but all have failed thanks to powerful historical societies who appreciate the past. That doesn't mean they necessarily like discussing some of the more sorted aspects of area history and the origin of the name.

At least two of the five original Native American Tribes that existed on Long Island considered the area taboo. Notations that I've seen in journals from some of the area's oldest Churches indicate that Indians were fearful of the area. They believed that negative forces were at work. Taking the appearance of odd lights on various parts of the Mount as a bad omen, those who did journey through that area sometimes found dead and mutilated animals. A few early settlers experienced much the same thing, finding their cattle or horses dead and strangely mutilated after strange lights were seen in the sky.

Since the Mount offered little in the way of farming opportunities, most of the first non-native people to arrive there settled on more promising locales around it. The Mount became a crossroads and travel route to save building roads through good farmland. The Peace and Plenty Inn was established in the late 1600s and still stands today at 107 Chichester Road. A favorite stop for Theodore Roosevelt two centuries later, the Inn was originally a center of social life and activities for early settlers and travelers. A school, mills that took advantage of natural streams and other small enterprises followed later.

Treatment for the mentally ill once consisted entirely of locking away those considered mad or unable to function well in polite society. Sometime in the early 1700's a small asylum was built somewhere in the center part of the Mount, away from any homes, business establishments or farms. Because workers were poorly compensated and lacked any training to deal with the insane or mentally disabled, the conditions were said to be atrocious. Patients were beaten or completely ignored.

Everyone on the Mount and even farmers in areas surrounding it could hear the miserable cries of the mistreated and insane during the early part of each day and well into every night. The area quickly became known as Mount Misery. After just ten years of operation, the asylum was destroyed by fire and never rebuilt. Although the fire was considered suspicious, no one was ever sought for setting it and no one offered a confession. But all were glad to see the asylum gone!

The Twentieth Century did nothing to help the Mount's reputable. Between 1900 and 1910 a number of people traveling through the area vanished. Horrified local residents began to report seeing a disheveled man walking through part of the Mount with a basket of disembodied human heads! Although the murders were never solved and the head collector never captured, people reported seeing the man with his basket of gruesome contents for years afterward. Some local residents swear he was still living somewhere in the area and committing murders right up through the 1930s.

Just when everything seemed to be settling down on the Mount, the government decided to build a military hospital there at the start of World War II. According to witnesses who worked at the infirmary, the structure was imposing for a compact facility. Just four stories high, it could only accommodate about 150-200 patients, but everything was state of the art for that time. Designed as a special use facility, soldiers brought there were those who required multiple surgeries, long term care and extended recovery. It was thought that the peace and quiet of the Mount would be perfect for such a facility, but the need for it was over-estimated.

No more then 75 soldiers were ever treated in the hospital at one time. By the end of World War II, the facility had become obsolete and too expensive to remain open. After remaining staff members were either transferred or laid off, the hospital was closed and boarded up. But then something strange happened. In 1947 the hospital showed signs of reopening. Boards came off the windows and crews cleaned the place up. Cars and people came and went during all hours of the day and night, but no one in uniform could be seen. From 1947 until 1955, the hospital came under the control of some unknown government agency. Although I have been unable to locate a single person who worked there during that time and is willing to talk about it, I may have discovered what the facility was being used for.

Some declassified government documents speak of experiments that the CIA and various Military Intelligence Services carried out involving mind altering drugs. It was no secret that the government was concerned about brain washing techniques developed by the Russians, Chinese and North Koreans. To better understand mind control procedures and possibly develop medicinal defenses against brain-washing, military personnel were given various amounts of mind-altering drugs with and without their knowledge.

While investigating paranormal phenomenon in the area of the Mount during the 1970's, I started to look into its history. More then a few people mentioned and recalled the military hospital that existed there during the war, but all said it had been closed in 1945. A few recalled some unexplained government use of the facility from the late 1940's well into the 1950's, but could offer no details.. One man who has since passed away could.

He told me that he became strangely ill while an Officer at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He experienced bizarre hallucinations and went from being perfectly healthy to gravely ill. The Officer was transported to the hospital on Mount Misery. He recalls being there, but little else. "It was like being in a constant dream state. I never felt fully awake. I was constantly fatigued…tired. They kept giving me medicine."

He was kept there for five months. Then in one twenty-hour period, he suddenly recovered. Restricted to just one small set of rooms in the facility, he never saw more then five people. "They were dressed like doctors and nurses, but had no insignia or military identification. When he was taken out of the hospital through a back service porch, he saw a sign that read, AREA 5. When the Officer arrived back at Fort Bragg, he made some very discreet inquiries. A friend and intelligence officer told him that Area 5 had something to do with Psychological Warfare experimentation and that he should not ask any more questions.

A few years later, the Officer retired and decided to go back to Long Island to see if the hospital was still open. It had been closed and sealed by that time. But as he asked locals about the facility, they claimed to see lights and hear noises coming from the facility late at night and early in the morning. More then a few people phoned local Police saying that they heard men's voices coming from inside the old building and calling for help. I was told the same thing whenever I asked those living in the area about the old military hospital.

The Officer eventually decided to live in nearby Melville and that's how we crossed paths. He came out to a local talk I was giving on the paranormal during the time I was investing the Mount in the 1970s. The so-called Haunted Hospital was torn down in the late 1970s after a couple of kids got injured when they broke into the decrepit building and fell down an old elevator shaft. Today you can still see the stone steps leading up to where the building was, but they're tough to find.

Although reported for years, UFO sightings began in earnest on Mount Misery in the 1960's. At least that's when people started to report them. More then a few teens who went there for some park and spark in the woods reported seeing disc shaped objects landing and taking off. Others described seeing a ‘second moon' in the sky. But UFOs may have been the least weird things seen on the Mount in those days.

Several people claim to have seen or had contact with a sort of flying monster with glowing red eyes known as The Mothman. Although barely mentioned in John Keel's timeless classic, THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, the creature's Long Island visits occurred on a fairly regular basis in and near a small cemetery just off of Sweet Hollow Road. In case you're wondering what I think of the Hollywood's Mothman film, don't waste you're time. It's nothing like the book. Along with the creature, there were sightings of and encounters with men dressed in dark suits who some call the Men In Black.

The late 1970's brought a new round of UFO and M.I.B. sightings and encounters. Fortunately, I was able to spend a good deal of time investigating those incidents. A very sane looking woman who lived in a large home on the Mount claimed she had been sucked out of her second story by a UFO. It was interesting to note that when I saw the window it looked as if the frame had been somehow burned out of position, and placed neatly on the ground some twenty-five feet below without breaking a single piece of glass!

This reminded me of the time that Whitley Strieber (author of COMMUNION) told me he had been taken out of his New York City apartment by UFO Occupants. They had apparently managed to remove the window without doing any damage several stories up, placing it against his bed. The woman was later visited by two MIB's who she claimed told her to shut up about the incident. The MIB's weren't alone. Dark colored helicopters and planes constantly over flew the Mount during my time there in the 1970's. On several occasions, National Guard Troops suddenly decided to hold maneuvers in the woods.

In the late 1980's, during yet another flap of UFO sightings and Encounters, whole sections of the West Hills Park and other parts of the Mount were sealed off. Large concrete barriers were erected and debris dumped at access points to open or undeveloped areas to keep people and off road vehicles out. Without explanation, police started showing up on weekends to keep idle UFO watchers and those bent on exploring the Mount as far away from the area as possible.

Animal mutilations sometimes occur in conjunction with UFO sightings. In 1989 I received a call from an employee working at the Bethpage Village Restoration, just a short distance from the Mount. This is a place where many of Long Island's most historic homes have been relocated to create an environment that illustrates what life was once like in the area during the 1700's and 1800's. During what seemed like a national outbreak of odd cattle deaths and mutilations, he told me that several animals in the Bethpage Restoration had been killed and strangely mutilated.

My investigation showed that at least two cows had met untimely and unlikely deaths in the Restoration Village. This clearly followed a trend of animal mutilations occurring in conjunction with UFO sightings in the area going all the way back to the Native Americans.

Although nobody had planned it that way, a large community Library in the area of the Mount asked me to come and speak on the Paranormal just around the time of the mutilations and when UFO sightings in the area were making news in 1991. There were far more requests for seating then seats and I spent hours answering questions after my seminar. But I'm sure that I gained as much information from the stories people told me as I gave out on that day. Although my seminar set a record for attendance at that Library for any event they've ever had, I will never be speaking there again. The Librarian in charge of programs told me that she had been warned by important people in the community not to have me back.

Mount Misery is just one of those places that can't seem to quietly fade into history. People move there in hopes of getting away from the craziness of New York City that's less then an hour away, only to find the Mount's own version of lunacy. You can't draw conclusions about a place like that, just have the time of your life studying it!

Chapter Two: The Grand Canyon's Grand Secret

In 1998 I unleashed a firestorm on the world wide web by meticulously placing an article written about the Grand Canyon in 1909 on my website. It generated more email on the subject then anyone else I had ever chosen to comment on or cover. In 1998 I unleashed a firestorm on the world wide web by meticulously placing an article written about the Grand Canyon in 1909 on my website. It generated more email on the subject then anyone else I had ever chosen to comment on or cover. That's because the Phoenix Gazette article revealed the existence of a grand secret in the nation's most famous canyon.

The best way to describe the situation is to allow it to describe itself. Here is the unabridged article just as it appeared in the Phoenix Gazette on April 5, 1909:

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Remarkable Finds Indicate Ancient People Migrated From Orient:

The latest news of the progress of the explorations or what is now regarded by scientists as not only the oldest archaeological discovery in the United States, but one of the most valuable in the world, which was mentioned some time ago in the Gazette (see photo at left), was brought to the city yesterday by G.E. Kinkaid, the explorer who found the great underground citadel of the Grand Canyon during a trip from Green River, Wyoming, down the Colorado, in a wooden boat, to Yuma, several months ago.

According to the story related to the Gazette by Mr. Kinkaid, the archaeologists of the Smithsonian Institute, which is financing the expeditions, have made discoveries which almost conclusively prove that the race which inhabited this mysterious cavern, hewn in solid rock by human hands, was of oriental origin, possibly from Egypt, tracing back to Ramses. If their theories are borne out by the translation of the tablets engraved with hieroglyphics, the mystery of the prehistoric peoples of North America, their ancient arts, who they were and whence they came will be solved.

Egypt and the Nile, and Arizona and the Colorado will be linked by a historical chain running back to ages, which staggers the wildest fancy of the fictionist. Under the direction of Professor S.A. Jordan, the Smithsonian Institute is now prosecuting the most thorough explorations, which will be continued until the last link in the chain is forged.

Nearly a mile underground, about 1480 feet below the surface, the long main passage has been delved into, to find another mammoth chamber from which radiates scores of passageways, like the spokes of a wheel. Several hundred rooms have been discovered, reached by passageways running from the main passage, one of them having been explored are 854 feet and another 634 feet.

The recent finds include articles, which have never been known as native to this country and doubtless they had their origin in the orient. War weapons, copper instruments, sharp - edged and hard as steel, indicate the high state of civilization reached by these strange people. So interested have the scientists become that preparations are being made to equip the camp for extensive studies, and the force will be increased to thirty or forty persons.

"Before going further into the cavern, better facilities for lighting will have to be installed, for the darkness is dense and quite impenetrable for the average flashlight. In order to avoid being lost, wires are being strung from the entrance to all passageways leading directly to large chambers. How far this cavern extends no one can guess, but it is now the belief of many that what has already been explored is merely the "barracks", to use an American term, for the soldiers, and that far into the underworld will be found the main communal dwellings of the families. The perfect ventilation of the cavern, the steady draught that blows through, indicates that it has another outlet to the surface."

Mr. Kinkaid was the first white child born in Idaho and has been an explorer and hunter all his life, thirty years having been in the service of the Smithsonian Institute. Even briefly recounted, his history sounds fabulous, almost grotesque:

"First, I would impress that the cavern is nearly inaccessible. The entrance is 1,486 feet down the sheer canyon wall. It is located on government land and no visitor will be allowed there under penalty of trespass."

The scientist's wish to work unmolested, without fear of the archaeological discoveries being disturbed by curio or relic hunters. A trip there would be fruitless, and the visitor would be sent on his way.

"The story of how I found the cavern has been related, but in a paragraph: I was journeying down the Colorado River in a boat, alone, looking for minerals. Some forty two miles up the river from the El Tovar Crystal canyon, I saw on the east wall, stains in the sedimentary formation about 2,000 feet above the river bed. There was no trail to this point, but I finally reached it with great difficulty. Above a shelf, which hid it from view from the river, was the mouth of the cave."

"There are steps leading from this entrance some thirty yards to what was, at the time the cavern was inhabited, the level of the river. When I saw the chisel marks on the wall inside the entrance, I became interested, securing my gun and went in."

"During that trip, I went back several hundred feet along the main passage till I came to the crypt in which I discovered the mummies. One of these I stood up and photographed by flashlight. I gathered a number of relics, which I carried down the Colorado to Yuma, from whence I shipped them to Washington with details of the discovery. Following this, the explorations were undertaken."

"The main passageway is about 12 feet wide, narrowing to nine feet toward the farther end. About 57 feet from the entrance, the first side-passages branch off to the right and left, along which, on both sides, are a number of rooms about the size of ordinary living rooms of today, though some are 30 by 40 feet square. These are entered by oval-shaped doors and are ventilated by round air spaces through the walls into the passages. The walls are about three feet six inches in thickness. The passages are chiseled or hewn as straight as could be laid out by an engineer. The ceilings of many of the rooms converge to a center."

"The side-passages near the entrance run at a sharp angle from the main hall, but toward the rear, they gradually reach a right angle in direction."

THE SHRINE

"Over a hundred feet from the entrance is the cross-hall, several hundred feet long in which is found the idol, or image, of the people's god, sitting cross-legged, with lotus flower or lily in each hand. The cast of the face is oriental, the carving shows a skillful hand, and the entire object is remarkably well preserved, as is everything in this cavern."

"The idol almost resembles Buddha, though the scientists are not certain as to what religious worship it represents. Taking into consideration everything found thus far, it is possible that this worship most resembles the ancient people of Tibet."

"Surrounding this idol are smaller images, some very beautiful in form; others crooked-necked and distorted shapes, symbolical probably, of good and evil. There are two large cactus with protruding arms, one on each side of the dais on which the God squats. All this is carved out of hard rock resembling marble. In the opposite corner of this cross-hall were found tools of all descriptions, made of copper."

"These people undoubtedly knew the lost art of hardening this metal, which has been sought by chemists for centuries without result. On a bench running around the workroom was some charcoal and other material probably used in the process. There is also slag and stuff similar to matte, showing that these ancients smelted ores, but so far, no trace of where or how this was done has been discovered, nor the origin of the ore."

"Among the other finds are vases or urns and cups of copper and gold, made very artistic in design. The pottery work includes enameled ware and glazed vessels. Another passageway leads to granaries such as are found in the oriental temples. They contain seeds of various kinds. One very large storehouse has not yet been entered, as it is twelve feet high and can be reached only from above. Two copper hooks extend on the edge, which indicates that some sort of ladder was attached. These grannies are rounded, as the materials of which they are constructed, I think is a very hard cement. A Gray metal is also found in this cavern, which puzzles the scientists, for its identity has not been established. It resembles platinum."

"Strewn promiscuously over the floor everywhere are what people call 'cats eyes,' a yellow stone of no great value. Each one is engraved with the head of the Malay type."

THE HIEROGLYPHICS

"On all the urns, or walls over doorways, and tablets of stone which were found by the image are the mysterious hieroglyphics, the key to which the Smithsonian Institute hopes yet to discover. The engraving on the tablets probably has something to do with the religion of the people. Similar hieroglyphics have been found in southern Arizona. Among the pictorial writings, only two animals are found. One is of prehistoric type."

THE CRYPT

"The tomb or crypt in which the mummies were found is one of the largest of the chambers, the walls slanting back at an angle of about 35 degrees. On these are tiers of mummies, each one occupying a separate hewn shelf. At the bead of each is a small bench, on which is found copper cups and pieces of broken swords. Some of the mummies are covered with clay, and all are wrapped in a bark fabric. The urns or cups on the lower tiers are crude, while as the higher shelves are reached, the urns are finer in design, showing a later stage of civilization."

"It is worthy of note that all the mummies examined so far have proved to be male, no children or females being buried here. This leads to the belief that this exterior section was the warriors' barracks. Among the discoveries, no bones of animals have been found, no skins, no clothing, no bedding. Many of the rooms are bare but for water vessels. One room, about 40 by 700 feet, was probably the main dining hall, for cooking utensils are found here."

"What these people lived on is a problem, though it is presumed that they came south in the winter and farmed in the valleys, going back north in the summer. Upwards of 50,000 people could have lived in the caverns comfortably. One theory is that the present Indian tribes found in Arizona are descendants of the serfs or slaves of the people, which inhabited the cave. Undoubtedly a good many thousand of years before the Christian era a people lived here which reached a high stage of civilization. The chronology of human history is full of gaps."

Professor Jordan much enthused over the discoveries and believes that the find will prove of incalculable value in archaeological work. "One thing I have not spoken of, may be of interest. There is one chamber, the passageway to which is not ventilated, and when we approached it a deadly, snaky smell struck us. Our light would not penetrate the gloom, and until stronger ones are available, we will not know what the chamber contains. Some say snakes, but other boo-hoo'd this idea and think it may contain a deadly gas or chemicals used by the ancients. No sounds are heard, but it smells snaky just the same."

"The whole underground installation gives one of shaky nerves the creeps. The gloom is like a weight on one's shoulders, and our flashlights and candles only make the darkness blacker. Imagination can revel in conjectures and ungodly daydreams back through the ages that have elapsed till the mind reels dizzily in space." AN INDIAN LEGEND

In connection with this story, it is notable that among the Hopi Indians the tradition is told that their ancestors once lived in an underworld in the Grand Canyon till dissension arose between the good and the bad, the people of one heart and people of two hearts.

Machetto, who was their chief, counseled them to leave the under world, but there was no way out. The chief then caused a tree to grow up and pierce the roof of the underworld, and then the people of one heart climbed out. They tarried by Paisisvai (Red River), which is the Colorado, and grew grain and corn. They sent out a message to the Temple of the Sun, asking the blessing of peace, good will and rain for people of one heart. That messenger never returned, but today at the Hopi villages at sundown can be seen the old men of the tribe out on the housetops gazing toward the sun, looking for the messenger. When he returns, their lands and ancient dwelling place will be restored to them. That is the tradition.

Among the engravings of animals in the cave is seen the image of a heart over the spot where it is located. The legend was learned by W.E. Rollins the artist, during a year spent with the Hopi Indians. There are two theories of the origin of the Egyptians. One is that they came from Asia; another that the racial cradle was in the upper Nile region. Heeren, an Egyptologist, believed in the Indian origin of the Egyptians. The discoveries in the Grand Canyon may throw further light on human evolution and prehistoric ages.

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At the start of the article a previous piece is mentioned. That article has also been located and briefly describes Kincaid's arrival in Yuma and his preparations for the expedition. Both articles have long been a thorn in the side of the Smithsonian. They claim no knowledge of the expedition or any materials retrieved from it. In 1998 a spokesperson for the Smithsonian wrote me a letter in response to my inquiry stating: "We know of no credible evidence that supports the discovery of ancient Egyptian artifacts or hieroglyphs anywhere in the Americas." But there are problems with their denials. What are clearly rock carvings with distinctly Egyptian hieroglyphs on them have been discovered in several areas of the Grand Canyon. I have tried to get subsequent comments from the Smithsonian, but have simply received an email stating that they stand by their original statements.

Whenever any type of discovery seems to interfere with the scientific status quo, it's ignored. Proof of this can be seen in the development of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. A number of serious scientists and engineers of his day freely exclaimed their doubts that such an invention would be feasible, or too complicated and expensive to develop. Other prominent scientific figures worried about the health effects of such a device, claiming it would likely lead to deafness. Most of the exposing views came from people hired to render them by telegraph companies and competitors. The same is true today. Some of these scientists also stated that people traveling in mechanical vehicles would probably die if the speeds reached surpassed sixty miles per hour.

There are a number of prominent Archeologists who have lined up against the gazette article and hieroglyphs as fakes. But there are far more positives then negatives in terms of evidence. Although the fabulous finds from the Grand Canyon caves were supposed to be described and exhibited by the Smithsonian, it never happened. Instead, further attempts to explore that part of the canyon were stopped. Federal authorities decided to make it off limits to exploration. Although conservation was given as one of the reasons, the restricted area was suspiciously limited to the same where the cave was discovered.

I have received a few references to letters or articles (but not the original documents) in private collections by people who have attended my seminars in Phoenix that claim a late 1930's attempt was made to re-visit the cave. It seems that a man named Johnson located one of the original expedition members who was still alive and living in Phoenix. The un-named man drew maps and helped Johnson to locate the cave area which, at that time, was not known to be in a restricted location. Johnson found that tons of rock had been dumped or placed at three possible entrances to the cave and seemed to extend well into it. Lacking the manpower, machines or funding necessary to go further, he gave up his quest but was sure he had located the cave.

One of the most interesting stories that came from the un-named member of the original expedition was that twenty ceremonial daggers were discovered in the cave. The daggers are not mentioned in the article because Kincaid feared their value might be such that serious attempts would be made to steal them. The weapons seemed very light and unusually sharp. The man was given one by Kincaid in lieu of his share of the discoveries. Others received some as well. He kept the dagger for years and marveled how it never seemed to corrode or loose sharpness. Finally, he sold it to an area collector for what he said was "a goodly sum" and lost track of the man. One wonders what the dagger was made of?

What was found in that cave that so disturbed the government? Surely the mere existence of proof that Egyptians or Phoenicians may have visited the ancient Americas would not be reason enough to cover up such a monumental discovery? But there may have been other forces at work. Like Utah and other parts of the Southwest, Arizona has always had a large population of people that follow the Mormon Faith. The Latter-Day Saints have long claimed that a great ancient civilization predated and existed before the Native Americans of North America. Considering the long-standing animosity between Mormons and the Government, it would not be impossible to believe that federal authorities would go out of their way to help deny these people physical evidence that might help support their point of view. But that's not the only possible reason for an archeological cover-up.

A short re-reading of the people of one and two hearts mentioned in the 1909 article reveals more things that might concern the Government. Many southwestern native peoples believe their ancestors came here from the skies or that they are somehow related to the stars. Many Hopi's believe this. It's possible that some unique material or technology was discovered in those caves of unknown origin that federal authorities did not want to have to share or explain until some future date. And what about the territorial considerations? Always a matter of contention between various tribes and federal authorities, a good case for land claims might have been made by any one or all parties involved based on the cave discoveries.

Although not enough of the hieroglyphic writing has been discovered for a translation, similar writing was discovered at a remote location in Australia around the same time that the 1909 Grand Canyon Expedition occurred. Like what was seen in America, the writing was the earliest form of Egyptian Hieroglyphs used by Egyptians, Phoenicians and others. The rock carvings are located in the National Park forest of the Hunter Valley, 100 kilometers north of Sydney in New South Wales. A rough translation of the 250 rock carvings reveals a story of Egyptians that were ship wrecked in Australia between 1779 and 2748 BC, based on the language used and references to King Khufu. A cave where the glyphs were found was likely the gravesite of the group's leader or commander, whose death is described in the translation.

Like the Grand Canyon carvings, many have taken sides against the Aussie glyphs as being fake. This seems odd when you consider the fact that any glyphs found in places where archeologists expect to find them are rarely questioned, despite some often questionable or odd content. In 1991, a weathered tablet discovered by archeologists in the Valley of the Kings was immediately touted as an "important piece of the ancient Egyptian puzzle." A year later it was exposed as a complete hoax planted there in the early part of this century by mischievous and bored archeology students angry at their over-bearing professor in charge of a dig in the valley.

Like the Grand Canyon cave discovery, the Aussie hieroglyphs would tend to fuel the fire of claims that Phoenicians or Egyptians may have walked the Americas at a time during or even before Native Americans arrived from the orient over the suspected Siberian Land Bridge. This would create all kinds of political and social problems, perhaps more then governments want to be bothered with.

Now it's my turn! I will not be foolish enough to claim absolutes with evidence that seems good, but very eclectic. Instead, I will play the guessing game with the wildest theory of all. Suppose there is more then one history? Sound crazy? Before you judge, consider the march of scientific discovery.

My Grandparents were part of a generation of people that thought the idea of manned flight impossible or impractical. Bishop Wright, Orville and Wilbur Wright's father, said that if God had meant for man to fly, he would have given him wings! But science, engineering and discovery won out the day. My parents used to laugh at the idea of people flying in space. It was all "Buck Rogers stuff" that belonged strictly in the science fiction realm. In 1969, Neil Armstrong bridged the gap between science fiction and science fact by being the first man to set foot on the moon. Since then, at least half of what we thought we knew about our planets, solar system and universe has changed based on new discoveries.

As a kid growing up in the 1960's, I read books, watched TV shows and went to movies about Time Travel. Like the previously wild ideas of manned flight and trips into space, time travel was a subject relegated to the sci-fi genre, despite impressive suggestions by Einstein and other great minds that it might be possible. Once I started to consider the idea of time travel as a possible reality, I had to settle on a methodology and theoretical explanation.

I decided that while time always seems to move forward, that view of things came from a one-sided position of existence experienced by people trapped in a linear time environment. Based on various theories and evidences, I now believe that time is like a circle. Anyone with the technology to do so might choose to visit any part of that circle. That would allow not for the recreation of the past, but the co-existence of it with any point in the future.

The problem with visiting any part of the circle is the impact that visit might have on other parts. People visiting the past will impact the future. Whether that impact is preordained or not, it will cause a change. The question is will the change be noticeable to some or all living it, or just equal things out? I have spoke to a number of people through the years that have noticed subtle changes. A house was remembered where there was none. A friend that every one knew was suddenly recalled by just one person. This could be an argument for the existence of multiple histories within the circle.

Is time travel mental or physical? One can't help but read the interpretation of the writings that Nostradamus left us and wonder what window of the future he was able to see through. Others may have had access to that same window. General Billy Mitchell was a strong advocate for the development of military air power by the USA after World War I, despite general disbelief in it as a viable military weapon prior to World War II. Over twenty years before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he told superiors that Nippon interest in air power might cause them to attack Pearl Harbor "early one fine Sunday Morning." He also predicted that one day unmanned drones could replace some manned aircraft for dangerous reconnaissance work. We are seeing this today as the war on terrorism has featured the use of many unmanned aircrafts.

If time travel is as physically possible as it may be mentally, anyone with the ability to travel through time would know the risks. The biggest would be to cause enough change so that their own existence would be wiped out or terribly altered. One would assume that time travelers would be extremely careful, no matter what their motivation might be. For this reason, little evidence would be allowed to exist for their journey. But some might just survive.

The 1990's brought attention to an Egyptian bas relief in the Abydos Temple. The relief seems to clearly show a helicopter, jet plane, space craft and dome or house with a microwave antenna on it. The previous characters on the panel show a royal cartouche and the mark of the sun god, along with a designation for the king of upper and lower Egypt. Was this the story of a future time told to a Pharaoh by visitors from that time? Nay Sayers claim the figures exist because of a re-carving of the stone for the purpose of correction, but I see no evidence of that to the extent that it could account for all the modern devices depicted on the relief.

I have many other proofs that time travel may exist at some point in the near future, but will not take the space needed to cover those here. Instead, I will ask you to consider that more may have been found in the Grand Canyon then first suspected. It seems strange that Egyptian explorers (if that's who they were) would end up so far from any coast in a most inhospitable section of a huge canyon? Unless they ended up or were purposely placed there, by people with the power to do so and for reasons not immediately clear. Has partial eradication of the event already been accomplished by time travelers who might have caused it? If not, where are the artifacts, what ever happened to Kincaid who vanished after the discovery and why is the Smithsonian so adamant about their denials?

Although any evidence of the 1909 cave appears to have been effectively dealt with by the government, exploration in caves along the Grand Canyon is still discouraged under the banner of environmentalism and cultural respect. Concerns about disturbing bat populations and native burial sites are the latest excuse used to keep people out. Of course the government makes a nice buck from allowing people from all over the world to walk right over the graves and sacred places of Native Americans at plenty of other Southwest locations and regularly works to clear bats of out various caves needed for their use!

Chapter Three: Contemplating The Assassination Of Diana, Princess Of Wales, Over Ten Years Later

Diana, Princess of Wales, died on August 31, 1997. Ten years after her death, I can easily recall what I was doing when the news first started to trickle in. Since sleep and I haven’t been friends for many years, I was in and out of bed and finally decided to watch some television. As I flipped through the channels, I noticed dark scenes with lots of flashing lights from emergency vehicles on most of the news channels and paused to find out what was going on. Text running across the bottom of the screen told the tale. Diana, Princess of Wales, was in some sort of automobile accident. The fact that she was with Dodi Al-Fayed at the time made it an even bigger news story.

After her divorce from Charles, Diana became the darling of millions of Brits and others that sympathized with her former situation. Most felt she received the cold shoulder from the Royal Family and was merely a trophy wife for Charles as he secretly desired and sought after Carmilla Parker Bowles. Public interest in Diana peaked when she began dating Dodi Al-Fayed and their relationship was the constant topic of every tabloid publication and entertainment news broadcast in those days.

As the minutes passed after I found about the accident, more details became available. The incident occurred in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris. Dodi and the driver of the vehicle had been killed instantly. Diana initially survived the accident, but went into cardiac distress on the way to the hospital. Despite all attempts to save her life, the princess was declared dead at around four in the morning.

As if on cue, the photographers that hounded Diana and Dodi on motorbikes and in cars became instant suspects. Blame flew everywhere and almost every channel on television was covering the story. The French Police were quick to take action by questioning the Paparazzi that followed the couple and those that were at the hotel where Dodi and Diana were staying. Stories circulated about photographers that took photos of Diana in the smashed vehicle instead of offering assistance or notifying the emergency services. They became instead scapegoats whether they deserved it or not.

Less than a month before the tragedy, my wife and I were talking about Diana. The conversation was inspired by a report about her shown on television. It featured some video of the Princess vacationing with Dodi Al-Fayed and wearing skimpy bathing suits. I commented to my wife that Diana wouldn’t be alive much longer. It was not a psychic prediction, nor a wish for some harm to come to her. It was merely an observation based on my years of experience as a UFO Researcher and Paranormal Investigator.

I always believed that if you wanted to find a bone, the best way to do so would be to follow the dog that buried it. After years of watching public officials, federal departments and intelligence services cover-up and distort information about UFOs, I knew that the U.S. and British Governments had a common goal above all others. That goal is bureaucratic survival. No single issue, problem or person would ever be allowed to bring down those governments or the behind the scenes Powers supporting them. The Assassinations of JFK and RFK were proof and practical examples of that fact.

While it’s impossible to point a finger of blame for planning Diana’s death at any specific person, agency or government entity, you didn’t have to be Nostradmus to know that Diana’s behavior was quickly moving from being naughty to unacceptable in the eyes of those responsible for maintaining the status quo of the British Government. Although she was divorced from Prince Charles, the long-standing implications of any affair, relationship, remarriage or additional births involving Diana probably gave a lot of important people in England the same kind of sleep problems that I had. It could also move anyone with the power to do something about Diana from being reactive to proactive.

As far as Diana was concerned, the British people were with her. They loved her and seemed to understand her need to get Charles and the Queen off her back. That belief was her undoing. People are notoriously fickle. Just a year after her death a huge charity was planned to commemorate her death and support her causes. A fortune was spent on promotions and everyone knew it was coming, but there were few takers. The tears dried and the public moved on. She mistook admiration for adoration. People might have admired her for standing up to Charles and seeking justice, but many still adored the Queen and felt that having a Royal Family in the UK provided an economic, political and social comfort zone.

Diana’s divorce left her with the title, Diana, Princess of Wales. Although she was not an HRH, a remarried Diana would be a major embarrassment to the royal line if Prince William eventually became King. That situation might upset the delicate balancing act that constitutes the British system of government enough to require a complete overhaul. That overhaul would almost certainly include the further limiting or complete abolishment of the English Throne. Any discussion of that kind would probably bring about instability in Britain and other Commonwealth Nations. Those weighing the life of Diana against political, social and economic consistency in the UK and elsewhere would probably feel themselves backed into a corner.

I’m certain that all of the media coverage of Diana and Dodi that summer before her death proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Every time a photo of Diana appeared in the press showing her in various stages of undress with Dodi, the resolve of those with the power to end her life was probably strengthened. Someone decided she and Dodi had to go and that was that. A surviving Dodi would be a wildcard that no one wanted to bet with or on.

When Diana decided to marry Charles, she made a decision for life. Believing she could marry the future King of England, give birth to his heirs, divorce him and simply move on to greener pastures was naďve at best. Governments have become huge entities that place their own survival above those that elect the people who are supposed to represent their best interests. They are monstrosities that will gladly chew up and spit out anyone or anything that gets in their way. Not understanding those facts probably condemned Diana to an early death.

Ten years after her death (or assassination), nothing has been happened to alter my belief that Diana was murdered to protect the British Throne and system of government. Although most people will remember the Princess of Wales for her charity and kindness, her death should be a constant reminder that we have all unwitting accomplishes in a worldwide conspiracy infecting many nations. While the politicians have us all at each other’s throats and remove the few freedoms we possess by piecemeal, we fret over who is or isn’t in power as if it really matters anymore.

Chapter Four: The Devil's Triangle: My Experience

Florida is a state full of legends and mysteries, but no Florida mystery has attracted more attention over the years then The Bermuda Triangle. Do I believe? Well, my own experience makes me wonder. Florida is a state full of legends and mysteries. The Fountain of Youth was sought after by Pounce de Leon when he arrived there, in what today is Saint Augustine, on April 2,1513. The Satan Tree which was said to drip sap that could kill a man was supposed to exist somewhere deep in Central Florida (it's probably in Disney World and there's a long line to see it!). The Skunk Ape, named for its obnoxious odor, is Florida's version of the Yeti or Sasquatch and has been sited throughout the State. But no Florida mystery has attracted more attention over the years then The Bermuda Triangle. Known better to locals as The Devil's Triangle, it's a supposed triangular area covering thousands of miles where ships, planes and people simply vanish. Although researchers disagree about the actual dimensions of the area, most will say that the Triangle stretches from the east coast of Florida over to Bermuda, down to Puerto Rico and back up to Florida again. In all fairness, anyone that has ever taken in the sun on the Miami or Fort Lauderdale beaches knows how strange the weather in that area is. One minute it's sunny and warm, the next minute the wind kicks up and your being pelted with hard rain. It can be cloudy with rain pouring down on one side of a street, while the other is sunny and pleasant. It's possible and even likely that the odd weather conditions and sudden changes in temperature or conditions has contributed to more then a few ship and aircraft disasters. But there's more to the story then weird weather.

Missing ships, planes and people are a part of life and the price some have to pay for travel, but the Triangle has had more then it's share. No one thinks much about the numbers until some major disaster or odd disappearance happens. In all, over 1000 people have vanished without a trace during the last thirty years in the Triangle. Statistics vary on the numbers of ships and planes missing and never found, but it's easily in the hundreds.

The area came to the Government's attention in 1945. Flight 19 departed the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station on December 5, 1945. Fourteen men in five Avenger torpedo bombers were scheduled to practice daylight bombing in the Hen and Chicken Shoals, but appeared to have navigation problems. Radio transmissions intercepted by Lt. Robert Cox, a flight instructor, indicated the planes may have been headed in the wrong direction. Cox may have made things worse by giving one of the Flight 19 pilots directions based on where he thought they were, instead of their actual position.

By nightfall, the flight was out of communication with the Naval Air Station. Several rescue aircraft were sent out in response to the emergency. One was a Martin Mariner flying boat. With several redundant hulls designed for survival in the water, it was largely considered unsinkable. Despite this, the Mariner and it's crew vanished. Some believe it may have caught fire and ditched into the ocean. A ship's crew reported seeing an explosion or fire in the night sky near where the Mariner was to rendezvous with other rescue aircraft, but no trace of the Mariner or it's crew was ever found. Others say that what the ship hands probably saw were flares associated with the rescue effort.

Several ships also vanished while searching for Flight 19, but that's not the strangest part of the story. For days after the Avengers disappeared, Marines were dispatched in small groups to search Florida's east coast beaches for any debris or bodies from the missing flight or rescue crafts that were also presumed lost. A classified military report on the entire episode was leaked to the press years later and indicated that during the third day of the search, a group of ten marines combing the beach near Miami just vanished!

The Marines were never seen again. If a few had gone missing, one might attribute it to drowning or desertion, but it seems unlikely that all ten would just not be there anymore. And this isn't uncommon. More then a few people on pleasure boats have reported having a conversation with someone on the craft, turning away, then turning back to find them gone. As in the case of the famed Marty Celeste, a ship which vanished in 1872, both large vessels and pleasure boats have been found floating adrift in various parts of the Triangle with no crew on board.

Without signs of fire, disaster or mishap, passengers and crews just disappeared from sea worthy ships. It seems ludicrous that anyone would abandon a ship for no good reason in the middle of an ocean? Some attribute this to attempts at piracy, but the vessels were never found looted. Some carried expensive cargo, others were found with people's purses or wallets on board containing large amounts of cash. Salvage rights has been another proposed theory to explain the abandoned ships, but in many cases no one directly benefited from the discovery of these abandoned vessels.

While it's true that the story of Flight 19 has become serious convoluted and exaggerated over the years, we still have the missing aircraft, ships and people that had been a part of that training flight and the subsequent rescue effort. Every few years someone tries to find one or more of the missing ships or planes and claims a fantastic discovery.

In the early 1990's, UNSOLVED MYSTERIES made a big deal of someone finding one of the torpedo bombers on the ocean floor. The number painted on the body of the bomber even seemed to match that of one of the missing planes. But on closer examination, and much to their dismay, the serial number on the engine did not match any of those from Flight 19 and the supposed matching number of the plane was actually from another flight.

Torpedo Bombers weren't just used for training missions. By the end of World War II, they were obsolete aircraft and became targets themselves. There could be literally hundreds of torpedo bombers lying fairly intact on the bottom of the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle. Some were slightly damaged during shooting or bombing practices, while others were just allowed to sink if missed during training sessions, but none so far found have proven to be from Flight 19. It took a disaster of equal or greater magnitude to prove how strange the Triangle really is.

Despite warnings not to launch because of chilly conditions, the Space Shuttle Challenger took off from Kennedy Space Center on January 28, 1986 and exploded over the ocean. In an effort to find out what went wrong, a search for pieces of the shuttle was launched that may well have been the greatest military and government search effort ever conducted. After searching what amounted to ten thousand square miles of ocean bottom, they found all the bodies of the astronauts and most of the shuttle. In all this searching, not one aircraft or ship that had ever vanished mysteriously in the Triangle was located. Many known wrecks and a few unknown ones were found, but nothing else.

What is the Triangle? A giant sea sink hole? Time Warp? UFO base? Energy vortex? I don't have the answer to that question. Rather then speculate on theories or use any more space re-telling Triangle stories you've probably already read or heard about, I'll share my own Triangle experience with you in the hope that it may add to the truth, and not distract from it. My first visit to Florida was in the Spring of 1966 when I was just ten years old. Talk of the Triangle was at a lull in those days. Although I had already been reading non-fiction books about the paranormal for about a year by that time, the topics were usually ghost or UFO related. None, that I can recall, had specifically mentioned Triangle events or disappearances. When I arrived in Fort Lauderdale with my parents for a two week vacation, I did so without any knowledge of the strangeness associated with the region.

We stayed in a Fort Lauderdale hotel, just across the street from the beach. The only strange thing that happened to me during the first few days of our vacation was waking up in the morning to find Spring Break college students passed out everywhere just outside of our efficiency suite. I mean they were just lying on the ground, sleeping in chairs and under the stairs. It was upsetting and a bit scary, but nothing compared to what I was about to deal with.

Near the end of our first week, my parents got a call from the front desk. The hotel was offering free Bahamas weekend trips to guests. The trip included two days and one night free at a hotel, plus a luxurious charter flight to and from the Islands. The object was to get people there for gambling. Although my folks weren't big on gambling, they thought the trip might be fun and made reservations for the last weekend of our vacation.

Too busy having fun in the hotel pool and at the beach, I didn't give the trip much thought until about a few days before the flight. I had always had a sort of sixth sense when it came to certain things. I would hear a song playing in my head before turning on the radio, then the song would be on the radio. The same with television. I would start thinking about a certain movie or a favorite episode of some TV series and it would be on when I started watching. It would be easy to through all that up to revolving music and TV schedules and even chance, but sometimes it's scary how right I could be about things.

The view from the balcony of the hotel was spectacular! It afforded a wide panorama of the Atlantic Ocean. Large and small ships could be seen traveling back and forth all day, while surfers gave it their best on small waves headed in towards the beach. But the early evening was my favorite time to look out over the water. Things quieted down and I found the sound of waves crashing against the shore to be soothing. But two days before the Bahamas weekend trip, I looked out at the ocean that evening and felt very troubled. The feeling grew stronger the next morning. Not wanting to upset my folks, I said nothing as they headed out to the beach. I stayed inside having had just a bit too much sun over the past week and a half.

I watched TV and enjoyed the air conditioning, while occasionally peeking out the front window to laugh at the college guys who were making complete fools of themselves down in the pool in an effort to pick up girls. I didn't look out toward the ocean. Despite these diversions, my thoughts always returned to the upcoming weekend trip. When I began to think about not going, I felt some peace. Chalk it up to the built in protective instinct that all children have, but there was no way I was going to take that trip.

After baking in the sun for a few hours in the morning, my parents came in for lunch. I wanted to speak right up, but decided to wait until after the meal. Then I told them. "I don't want to go on that trip to the Bahamas." It was simple, direct and honest. My folks were shocked! It was unlike me to be so defiant. Even though they wondered why, I had no answers to offer. At ten years of age, it was tough to put feelings that you didn't understand into words.

Despite attempts to change my mind and an insistence that I was going, I assured my parents that nothing was going to get me on that plane. By the day of the trip, my folks gave up. Maybe they were afraid I would freak out during the flight or were just two exhausted from a vacation filled with activities to be bothered with the trip. Either way, they made me the fall guy claiming that I had ruined the family's one chance to see the Bahamas. Fortunately, my folks went out on Friday evening to a show in the hotel and I didn't have to hear about it all night. I stayed up late Friday watching old movies on TV and felt the best I had in days.

Although I was normally up with the sun, six o‘clock came and went without me the next morning. My parents hadn't come in until after one thirty, so they wouldn't be getting up early that day either. The phone rang just around eight o‘clock. I woke up, but couldn't drag myself out of bed fast enough to answer it. My father woke up and took the call. It was the front desk. There was a short conversation that I couldn‘t hear, then my dad went back to bed.

Once I was awake, it was hard for me to go back to bed. After making a pit stop in the restroom, I headed for the TV. Our efficiency suite was divided enough to allow me to watch TV, close the door to the room where my parents were sleeping and not disturb them. I loved those Saturday morning superhero cartoons! The phone rang again around ten o'clock, but my father answered it again before I could. By eleven, both my parents were up. There seemed to be a long discussion going on, but I couldn't tell what was being said and just figured they were making plans for our departure on Monday morning.

Lunch was an unusually muted affair. No one really spoke except to lay out a few plans for the rest of the day. Clouds gathered throughout the afternoon, so we decided to spend it at the movies instead of the beach. Although I wanted to see a monster flick, we ended watching THE SINGING NUN. If there was a hell, I wanted the producer of that film to go there! After the movie, we stopped at a fast food place and brought some back to the efficiency. There still wasn't much conversation.

That evening I went to a small game room just off of the hotel lobby to play pinball and some other games of the period. There was a lot of activity in the lobby. Police came and went, and people were calling to ask about friends and relatives staying at the hotel. After about an hour of listening to the front desk conversations with one ear and hearing the bells and whistles of the pinball game with the other, I figured what had happened.

It seems that the charter plane carrying those who went on the weekend trip to the Bahamas had vanished! It carried passengers who were guests at a number of area hotels, including ours. About eight guests from our hotel had been aboard. I figured out later that the first early morning phone call to our room had been to see if we were in or had taken the flight, while the second was to find out if we knew any others that might have passed on the trip.

My parents were the type of people who were not up to speed with pop culture or anything out of the ordinary. To them, The Beatles were either bugs in our garage or a passing fad. Tom Jones was about as wild as it got for their taste. I had to buy any books about the paranormal with my own allowance money because they thought such material was junk. The first time that ROSEMARY'S BABY aired on TV, my folks wouldn't let me watch it and actually confiscated the small TV I had in my bedroom to be sure that I wouldn't. I was thirteen at the time! Given all that, I knew that the incident with the plane would just never get discussed, and it never did.

I still can't explain what happened or why I didn't want to get on that plane. When I think about it, I'm reminded of any number of stories I've heard about people obeying a sense of doom and missing a flight or not keeping an appointment, only to find it saved their lives. But that's the real mystery of The Devil's Triangle. Despite our best efforts to explain it all away with science, coincidence or a closer examination of the facts, the place keeps throwing things in our face that are a little stranger then our ability to fully understand them.

Chapter Five: Were Ancient People More Modern Then Us?

Scientists have portrayed ancient cultures as brutish societies that lacked even a basic knowledge of their surroundings. It's only been in the last hundred years that this time-honored falsity has begun to fall apart. Institutions of higher learning have spent the last several hundred years perpetuating what may be the greatest lie ever told. Believing that their methodology holds the key to understanding everything in the universe, Scientists have portrayed ancient cultures as brutish societies that lacked even a basic knowledge of their surroundings. It's only been in the last hundred years that this time-honored falsity has begun to fall apart.

Like most students who were fed a non-stop stream of theories that make up what universities like to believe are rock-solid scientific and historic principles, I was lead to think of most ancient societies as warring tribes barely able to create metal fighting tools that wouldn't fall apart. While much time was spent on the orderly governments that came out of the empires created by Greece and Rome, little was said about their technology. The same may be said of ancient Egypt. Stories of long ocean voyages by the Phoenicians, Vikings and Chinese were either ignored or dismissed as myths created by over nationalistic braggarts.

Although I attended school during the 1960's and 1970's, I'm afraid that little has changed. Pet theories about ancients still rule the day and ignore some very starting facts which indicate that long-vanished societies may have been far more advanced in their capabilities that us. To understand all this, we must first adjust our thinking about what being ‘advanced' or ‘modern' means. Technology is a matter of discovery. It's entirely possible that humans could be floating around today in anti-gravity cars while billions of barrels of oil languished unused in the ground if the study of magnetism had yielded a usable product before work ever began on engines that use fossil fuel.

If we say that archeology has provided us with no proof that ancients drove gasoline-powered vehicles, this doesn't mean they weren't more advanced then we are. Various discoveries have showed that the Romans concocted a number of devices that used weights and magnetism to create what some say were escalator-like devices and even automatic doors! These devices did not consume or require any fossil fuel power source like electricity, which makes them all the more astonishing and far superior to our power-gulping devices.

The Roman Coliseum is a good example of smart technology. It's now an accepted fact that elevators and lifting areas were used to quickly move people, animals and scenery on and off the main floor where all the action took place. It could even be flooded to recreate naval battles. But we still do not know exactly how they did it?

With an abundance of beasts of burden and roads more friendly to chariots and rough carts then a Maserati, it might never have occurred to the Greeks, Romans or other ancient people to create a better form of transportation. Instead, they concentrated on creating other things like amazing irrigation and water delivery systems. Some of these are still used today!

The real disservice done to our society by the culture of higher education and all their pet theorems is that we are denied knowledge that might unlock the secrets of our existence and reproduce ancient technologies that could be used for our benefit. Even today, we ignore alternative methods of healing and treatment in favor of toxic and life-threatening procedures that make no promise of a cure. While lightly-clothed cultures living in the Amazon rain forests are portrayed as mindless children in need of our rescue, pharmaceutical corporations secretly spend millions on expeditions to that area in search of secrets that allow many of these seemingly primitive people to live virtually disease free lives!

While astronomers and scientists patted each other on their backs for the last several hundred years over the discovery of the nine known planets in our solar system, a 5000 year old Babylonian plaque was available to them that could have provided the same information. The plaque clearly shows our sun, surrounded by nine planets. All are correct in terms of size, shape and distance from the sun as compared to what we know today. How did these ancient people who lacked telescopes, computers and deep space probes obtain this knowledge?

The very idea that some alien civilization might have provided this information and even had an impact on human development scares the wits out of modern scholars. Why? Because if they do not know everything or are scientifically unable to correctly interpret most of the world around them in a cohesive way, why do we need them?

Scholars at a loss to explain them, ignore things like Egyptian wall carvings of modern jet planes, helicopters and what appear to be space ships in the Temple of Abydos. They fail to comment on an Egyptian drawing of two slaves holding funnel like devices, connected with very modern-looking heavy wires, that seem to have been used to levitate heavy objects. While it would be more then premature to state that what these objects appear to be or do is actually what they seem, it is foolish to merely try and explain them away because they don't fit the norm.

In 1973 a U.S. deep sea submersible craft photographed Roman Columns that seemed part of a temple structure at the bottom of one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Rather then ending up in some scientific journal or being debated on a university campus, the photo was published in an obscure book about the supposed lost continent of Atlantis. While the photo may have certainly served the purpose of the book's author, would it not have served history and archeology even more if published and debated in those circles?

In the 1960s a German bookkeeper named Erich Von Daniken began to investigate a serious of worldwide archeological enigmas. This lead him to believe that Aliens visited our planet in ancient times and may have had a serious influence on humanity. His assumptions became a book entitled, Chariots Of The Gods. Despite criticism that his claims were based on incorrect interpretations and that he lacked the educational background to make any archeological assumptions at all, his book made people think.

Around the same time, a language scholar named Zecharia Sitchin assembled an impressive volume of information to back his belief that Aliens had, indeed, visited the earth and genetically manipulated humans in ancient times. The 12th Planet was published during the 1970's and became the first of many books in the Earth Chronicles series. Speaking with Sitchin is like receiving an instant education about the ancient middle eastern world. Having personally met him, attended his seminars and interviewed him on several occasions for cable TV, I was immediately impressed with his ability to answer questions, rebut criticisms and provide facts to back up his theories. This is not to say that I agree with all he says, but I am certain that Zecharia has made a lasting contribution to the study of ancient cultures from another perspective.

Most of the archeological anomalies brought to public attention by people like Von Daniken and Sitchin were items built or manufactured by ancient people or special knowledge they seemed to possess. Examples are monolithic constructions found throughout the world with similar features and an uncanny understanding of the world and universe they lived in. Lacking the technology (as we understand it) to built these things or possess that knowledge, this evidence flew directly in the face of accepted theories about ancient peoples.

Despite the obvious impact on almost everything we think or believe about our world or ourselves if people like Von Daniken and Sitchin are even near correct, the biggest affront to modern academia will not be the collapse of treasured theories, but the shocking revelation that humans are not alone in the universe. It's almost a foregone conclusion among academics that little or no evidence supports the idea that life other then our own exists out there. If they are proved wrong, it's more then just a loss of credibility. It's a complete disruption of the revered status enjoyed by scientists who always seem able to explain (or explain away) everything in due time.

I would ask young minds and older ones set in their ways to take one more look at the ancient world with an open mind. If they do, they might just discover their past and get a sneak preview of their future!

Chapter Six: Ghost Children of San Antonio

When I first began to speak of the Ghost Children of San Antonio in my seminars, the story was largely unfamiliar to people outside of Texas. But it's more then just a ghost story, it's a part of American history. When I first began to speak of the Ghost Children of San Antonio in my seminars, the story was largely unfamiliar to people outside of Texas. But it's more then just a ghost story, it's a part of American history. In 1949 a school bus filled with children stalled as it tried to climb a small grade on the tracks of a rail road crossing located at the corners of Shane and Villamain Roads, just off of SE Loop 410. These were times when many rural crossings had no signals and were designed to accommodate trains, not vehicles. Wood placed between tracks on the crossing would often warp and create a trap for tires and little thought was given to keeping the grade even on both sides of the crossing.

Although details are sketchy, it seems the bus was able to get it's front wheels over the tracks, but then stalled while trying to climb a suddenly steep grade on the other side of the crossing. Meanwhile, the back wheels acted like an anchor stuck between pieces of wood and track so that the engine kept stalling as it tried to move the bus. With no warning, a train was seen coming down the track. Panic set in and escape seemed impossible. A few lucky children got out through windows, but the driver and most of the kids died.

Before we get to the supernatural aspect of this event, let's look at what the practical outcome was. Prior to this incident, little thought was given to school bus safety. Bus windows were difficult to open depending on the heat or cold, there were no rear end emergency exit doors and no pop out emergency escape windows. Riders rode and drivers drove. There were no safety monitors or other adults on board and drivers had little use for what went on in the passenger seating areas, save for when the noise got too loud.

No one can remember how many children died that day, but some did and that was enough to infuriate people from coast to coast. Photos, drawings and descriptions of the gruesome scene haunted parents everywhere. As with most tragic accidents, the regulations came after there were victims. Legislators throughout North America passed laws insisting that school buses stop just prior to going over a railroad crossing to be sure no trains were coming. School districts insisted that bus cabins be made safer, with emergency escape doors and windows. But that wasn't the only outcome or aftermath of the incident.

Between 1949 and 1951, area residents reported seeing ghostly kids. Several streets nearby the crossing bare the first names of children. It's been incorrectly assumed that the streets were named for either some of the crash victims or survivors. The names were in place for years before the disaster, but the ghosts came after!

Not wanting to be blamed for adding to what some consider an urban legend, I decided to visit the area and investigate the stories over a period of time as lectures and seminars brought me into San Antonio. While there are lots of haunted places there and many with more colorful and interesting histories, I could not escape my own interest in this odd case.

In the late 1980s I met an elderly man who I will call Blair. He and his family lived in the area near the tracks for years. Blair was fifteen years old when the children were killed, but had sketchy memories of the incident. His father was one of the first people on the scene after the bus was hit by the train, but never spoke much about what he saw. Blair's connection to the event came in 1951, two years after the crash.

His father had just started to work on the engine of an older vehicle the family used for local errands and some hauling. Blair thinks it might have been a 1935 Dodge pick-up. In what was a very hot summer, the engine kept over-heating near the railroad crossing. Given the change in grade, the rough crossing boards and the age of the truck, no one thought there was anything unusual about that. But before his father could get very far with the repair job, a call came from an uncle who lived about fifteen miles away. His uncle needed his father to make a local delivery of some farm machine parts he had sold. Blair's father was paid for these runs and the extra money came in handy.

The father and his seventeen year old son headed out in the old dusty pick-up. When they got to the crossing, the pick-up coughed and the gears were grinding, but the old truck made it over the tracks and just beyond before dying. Because they were now on an up grade, Blair's father put the truck in neutral and told the teen to keep his foot on the brake until he yelled for him to take it off. His father was going to try and push the pick-up just off the road to see what could be done to get it started.

While Blair's father headed around the back of the pick-up, Blair felt a sudden jolt. He wondered why his dad hadn't told him to let his foot off the brake? Blair's father thought the engine was coming to life and headed back to the cab jumping into the driver's seat. Blair scooted over and both wondered what happened? Over the next few seconds they felt two more jolts and the pick-up started rolling uphill!

As the vehicle arrived at the top of the grade, Blair's father tried to start the pick-up and the engine groaned to life. They drove off somewhat puzzled, but focused on the errand at hand. After arriving at the uncle's house, Blair went around the back of the pick-up to make room for the parts they were to deliver and made an unusual discovery. A number of small hand prints appeared on the rear gate and sides of the vehicle. There were no young children in their household. As far as they knew, kids stayed out of their yard because they had a mean watch dog. The last kids to visit their property were relatives who had come there several years before the incident.

It's impossible to say if this amazing local phenomenon had it's origin in Blair's story, but People still line up today to have their vehicles pushed up the grade by small unseen hands that leave prints on dirty cars and trucks. Some people even sprinkle the rear of their vehicles with baby powder to authenticate the tiny handprints. I have experienced this phenomenon myself and others have taken photographs of the area which show odd anomalies.

So called ORBS appear in nighttime photos over and near the tracks. Many believe orbs to be a sign of the presence of ghosts. But more then orbs have been seen by people living near the tracks. In the 1990s an elderly woman came out to one of my San Antonio Seminars. Bringing a few friends with her, they spoke to me before and after the lecture. Nervous and a bit hesitant to tell her story, Mary said she lived in a house on one of the streets with children's names when first married in 1950. They rented the house from a distant relative who had never mentioned anything about the bus accident or children.

While sweeping out the home on a comfortable spring day, Mary saw a young girl standing at her screen door. She guessed that the girl was about eight or nine years old. She opened the door and heard the child say that something bad had happened over at the railroad crossing. Before she could ask what happened, the child ran away and around the corner. Upset, she asked some neighbors about it? They told her to forget about the whole thing and seemed unconcerned. Perhaps this was some prank that local kids played on newcomers?

Less then a week later, it happened again. Mary was sitting out in front of the house enjoying the fresh spring air when she saw the same little girl round a corner and come towards her. Standing not three feet away, the child said, "I'm Emily. Is my Mommy home?" Mary asked where she lived? The little girl pointed to the home Mary and her husband were renting. Just as she was going to offer a response, the little girl said, "Please, Ma'am, watch out for the railroad crossing." Then the child vanished before her eyes!

Once again, Mary sought some advice from her neighbors. Most feigned ignorance, but a woman who lived several houses down from her told Mary what she knew. She had also seen Emily, as had most of the neighbors. In each case the child warned them to beware of the railroad crossing and did so in broad daylight. Mary was even more shocked when she found out that her landlord had a daughter named Emily that had been killed in a Bus accident at the crossing!

The people that I spoke to regarding the ghost children seemed sincere and told their stories to me well before the incident gained any sort of national attention. The two stories I have mentioned were collaborated by friends, neighbors and relatives of the witnesses who say they have told the same stories over many years without changing a thing. There are many others with stories to tell, but I found these two to be some of the earliest that could be researched and collaborated. It's interesting to note that after some repairs were done to make the rail road crossing less treacherous in the mid-1950s, Emily stopped appearing to people. But if you park your car just off the tracks, you will still get a free push courtesy of the unknown.

Rather then offer an opinion or endless speculation on the ghost children of San Antonio, I will just wish them peace.

Chapter Seven: The Montauk Project: Myth or Monster?

The Montauk Project is described as government experimentation with time travel. Does proof exist to show it really happened?

It came as no surprise that after I introduced some of the survivors of the Philadelphia Experiment and the Montauk Project to the world through my video, The Truth About The Philadelphia Experiment, authorities in charge of the Montauk Base clamped down on uninvited visitors. The clamp got even tighter as I added the subject of what had allegedly happened there to my seminar. That seminar brought the story of the Philadelphia Experiment and Montauk Project to tens of thousands of people throughout North America via my live seminars, and to thousands more on video.

The clamp down on already restricted public access to the property was justified by local authorities who claimed that visiting the old base was dangerous. They expressed concern that people might be injured trying to gain access to abandoned buildings or lost in unmapped underground areas. So why leave what they claim is an abandoned base intact in the first place? Why not go in with bulldozers, explosives and clear the entire area?

Since New York State claims they now own most of the property, why not clear it and sell the much-desired beachfront land for a zillion dollars a square foot to solve all the state budget problems? To put the value of the property into perspective, the sale of all that beachfront land could probably pay for most of the Homeland Security budget for the entire eastern part of the United States for the next ten years! But it remains unsold, just as the buildings and underground areas remain intact. Why?

Camp Hero is actual designation of what we call the Montauk Base that lies at the far eastern end of Long Island. Although it's just south of the historic Montauk Lighthouse, most people have no idea this facility even exists. Records are sketchy and mostly unavailable on the property, but it's been owned by or under U.S. Government influence for almost two hundred years. Once considered strategically important, the base was supposedly closed and abandoned in 1966. Once used as an observation area, fort, shore battery installation and radar facility, the continued use of the property by the federal government was considered unnecessary after another facility took over radar monitoring responsibilities needed for NORAD. At that point it was turned over to New York State, which has since described it as undeveloped park land.

Despite denials from the U.S. Government that the base is still a federal facility, it still takes an intervention from a New York State representative or senator to legally visit the property. Once a request has been made by the office of a federal lawmaker on behalf of a citizen wanting to visit the facility, it must be cleared by higher authorities. Who those authorities are is unclear? The reason given for this is a small patch of antennas on a tiny hill that is easily visible near the old main entrance to the base. Those antennas are used as part of the U.S. Coast Guard communication system and have been for years. Despite the fact that they could have easily been moved elsewhere to a higher and better location at any time, allowing the antennas to remain there gives the federal government a measure of control over the property.

That's the enigma of the secrecy that surrounds Montauk. Nothing makes sense about the place and hasn't since the 1960s. I have visited the base on several occasions, spending a considerable amount of time there. This is no easy task! Men dressed as fisherman regularly walk the perimeter to be sure that no one strolling along the beach or near the lighthouse wanders on to the property. Although they never seem to have any fishing gear or poles, these tall and tough fisherman warn off potential visitors to the base by reminding them the property is closed to the general public.

Each time I visited the base it was on a major holiday. I knew there would be few, if any, actual security people on the periphery of the facility. Once inside, I would just have to be extremely careful. On a related note, a four wheel drive vehicle frantically drove around the base roads after I noticed a surveillance camera staring me in the face at one of the buildings during my first visit. Fortunately, I evaded capture.

I visited the Montauk base seeking to verify two incredible stories. According to witnesses interviewed on my Philadelphia Experiment video (which also covers the Montauk Project thoroughly), the base was used as a continuation for government experiments involving time travel and mind control technology first discovered during the initial endeavor in the 1940s. The huge radar tower was said to be the instrument that directed waves of mind altering signals out for miles and into towns that surround the base.

Despite the fact that the radar dish wasn't supposed to have been used since the 1960s, I found it in remarkably good condition. The electricity in the tall radar building was on and the restroom was useable. Although the large motors that moved the dish had been disconnected from it and removed, the dish was allowed to sway in the wind to keep it from collapsing. The technology being used for the alleged mind control signal may have been omni-directional, not requiring the specific movement of the huge dish to a certain bearing. Large numbers of modern looking wires ran from tubes coming from underground into the building and vanished inside its walls.

Although some of the old base houses lie in ruin, many of the offices looked as though they had recently been used. A few had working phones! Although many of the buildings looked to be in a sad state of maintenance from the outside, many were in perfect condition inside. Some had lights on and seem to have been altered for other uses. The inside of the chapel contained a modern gymnasium. An old PX seemed to have become some sort of a kitchen with hundreds of metal food trays neatly stacked on racks. Other buildings had new fences erected around them and very modern security cameras almost hidden from view were placed in trees, on rooftops and along walkways. I went during a chilly time of year and heat flowed through an external system that ran to every building. But the biggest surprise of all waited for me in the underground area.

Despite the fact that the base was never occupied by more then sixty or seventy people during any of it's incarnations, a trip into the underground area revealed hundreds of wooden racks (bunk beds) inside a large maze of what seemed like fenced in and locked areas. It looked like a base brig (prison), but why so many sleeping areas? The answer might just lie in what the Montauk survivors had claimed. They say that hundreds of people were brought there, against their will, to be part of whatever went on underground. The proof of this seems to be found in the hundreds of sleeping areas and converted PX building where meals for that many people could be prepared and delivered to the underground as needed.

Another story involving the base was that a large beast had appeared as a result of underground experiments, gotten loose and caused extensive damage above ground. After that, some of the experiments were shut down and the infamous time travel chair removed. I did find some buildings which looked as though they had been attacked and partially destroyed by something big and powerful. Huge holes made it look as if something had punched its way out of the underground tunnels. The remaining tunnels and underground areas were sealed and cemented off where the chair may have been.

I felt as though I was walking through a ghost town where the residents had simply vanished or moved underground, but could return at any time to use buildings ready for them. The Montauk survivors believed that the project, in one form or another, was still going on there. While walking on certain parts of the base, I felt a steady thumping under my feet. Given the fact that I had sneakers on and saw no evidence of above ground construction or a source for the strange vibration, this was more then a little disconcerting! Stooping down to feel the ground with my hands, the thumping was more pronounced. I believe that they might have been building new or repairing old underground areas.

I visited the Montauk Base with neutral thoughts, neither believing or disbelieving the incredible claims made about the facility by those who say they survived horrifying ordeals there. My concern was finding evidence to support or refute the claims being made. What I found was a base that seemed abandoned, but also very active. The physical condition of what I examined more then supported at least the background fabric of the stories I was told.

If you go to the base today, all the old accesses to the underground areas have been tightly sealed. But there is still access to caves along the beach area once used by bootleggers during prohibition to smuggle in illegal booze from offshore boats. Many of these caves connect to tunnels built by Nicola Tesla for experiments with electricity many years ago. These tunnels are separate and apart from the others used for access to the shore batteries and old fort. It would be easy to use these resources to construct a new and even larger underground area for continued experimentation. Why there? Maybe it's some sort of a vortex? I don't know and cannot say. What I do know and now believe is that at least part of the truth about what the U.S. Government knows or has developed as a result of the Philadelphia Experiment and captured alien hardware is likely buried under what is still described as undeveloped New York State Park land.

Chapter Seven: The Haunting Story Of Alexandra Holzer

Alexandra Holzer had anything but a normal childhood. One of two sisters, she is the youngest born to Ghost Hunter Hans Holzer and Countess Catherine Buxhoeveden. She explained some of the funny, offbeat and frightening moments of her youth in Growing Up Haunted: A Ghostly Memoir (Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2008). To understand Alexandra, you really have to know a bit about her parents, so we’ll begin there.

Hans Holzer is generally considered to be the father of modern spirit investigation. The author of over one hundred and forty-five books and novels, Hans wrote Ghost Hunter in 1963 and established the methodology that many within the field of paranormal investigation use today. He received his Ph.D from the London College of Applied Science and has made appearances on popular television programs such as In Search Of and Murder in Amityville.

Countess Catherine Buxhoeveden, also known as The Haunted Countess, is a direct descendent of Catherine The Great of Russia. Born at Castle Rovina in Merano, Italy, she grew up and eventually married Hans Holzer. Catherine helped research many of the topics for his books and added her own intuitive, imaginative and inspired artwork to those projects. The Countess lives on Long Island and often shows her art work in The Hamptons.

After reading almost all of her father’s books, I was thrilled to speak with Alexandra over the phone. She instantly communicates a sincere interest in spirit investigation. However, it would be wrong to believe that she is just some chip off the old block. Alexandra makes it clear that she and her father do not see eye to eye on a number of issues. One of them happens to be the subject of demons.

“My father doesn’t believe in demons…he says spirits are beings of light” she told me matter-of-factly. Hans is not alone in his assessment of evil spirits, however, it does cut a swath across research by others that do believe in them including Ed and Lorraine Warren, well-known ghost hunters and authors in their own right, and his own daughter. He also seems to find fault with some of her conclusions as evidenced by a recent debate over a photo she showed to him and her mother. Alexandra describes the situation:

“After rediscovering my ability of sight and tapping into my sixth sense, I began taking photo's around my home. The results showed anomalies which I concluded were not manmade from the environment of my home such as dirt, dust or in-door rain. I became excited and had my mother take some of her own photos. I explained to her that the objects were probably the physical manifestations of spirit guides, family members that passed over and so on. She was just as excited and in her low-key mellow way, just as astonished to see what appeared on her bedroom curtains and floors. Shapes taking form, an arm here, a leg there… That began the topic of our orb conversations. Sounds like a bucket of chicken: You get the wing, oh look here's the breast!”

“I took it another step forward by taking some photos during a function at my sisters house in Riverdale, New York. I wasn’t just interested in preserving family moments, but was searching for evidence of life after life on film. What I believe to be a face appeared in one of the photos. It was just behind my sister and seemed to come out of her curio. After looking at the photo a couple of times, she agreed that the anomaly was a face. That’s when the orb fight began.”

“My mother, sister and I went to show the photo to my father. Well, Mr. Ghost Hunter didn’t exactly see eye to eye with us. He emphatically stated, ‘That's not an orb! I can't see what it is, BUT it's not a person!’ That's all it took to start a ten minute verbal battle over the photo and its contents. I said, ‘Look there is the head,’ and he'd reply, ‘That's not a head, it's the light coming from the room!’ I'd say, ‘It's shaping here like a person,’ he'd reply, ‘That's not a person, it's a bug of some sort perhaps, but it's not a person!’ We ended the argument by agreeing to disagree, but I was still red-faced angry over the whole thing and the argument was far from over as far as I was concerned.”

That’s what is so terrific about Alexandra. She has a passion that rivals her father’s when it comes to spirit investigation. That passion came through during own phone conversation and in her description of her relationship, agreements, disagreements, admirations and frustrations with her dad. She says, “Life with my father is difficult, confusing and inspiring all rolled into one.” Alexandra continued:

“As a child, he was there for me to hold my hand crossing the busy New York City streets. He was there to take me to the pediatrician when I was sick, but always felt uncomfortable sitting in the waiting room. He complained about the germs in those places. Despite that eccentricity, he was entertaining and very considerate of my likes and dislikes. He once made the mistake of bringing me toast with orange marmalade when clearly, strawberry was my favorite. I bellowed at him at the ripe old age of seven and said, ‘Father, that's NOT the right jam!’ Laughing, he just smiled, left the room and returned with a new batch of toast and strawberry jam.”

“I long for those days and wish for more, but my father never allowed me into the paranormal side of his life with the exception of telling me stories from the past. As old age set in, it was too late to get involved with that. The man I once knew had become more difficult and less forthcoming of his business. Today, all I can do is develop my own path and try to carry on what little he'll let me until he passes. When he does, I will be able to continue without walking on eggshells or being fearful of insulting his ego. He'll be in a better place, smiling again, and devising a plan to haunt me I am sure!”

I was nine years old when I became aware that my father’s military career and the friends he knew from those days provided proof positive that Extraterrestrials were visiting our planet. That awareness became the catalyst which launched my interest in the paranormal. It caused me to read books on the subject (including Ghost Hunter) and watch people like her dad on television. I wondered when Alexandra first became aware that her father was a famous Ghost Hunter? She provided the following answer:

“I was around the age of nine or ten years old. It was Christmas Time and my mother began wrapping up some of my father's books as gifts for the school teachers. I attended prep school in Manhattan, so the environment was quiet, proper and subtle. One day before Christmas break, my class sat watching our History teacher as he opened up his gifts. I hadn't a clue what we got him, but was excited to watch him open the present. I picked out the silver, shiny paper that apparently left glitter all over any hands that touched it. As he looked at his hands, I felt very bad and sunk into my chair. He laughed it off and with a smirk continued to open the package.”

“When the paper fell to the floor, a bunch of books appeared and the look on his face went from a smirk to a serious grin. ‘What could it be?’ I wondered. ‘What the heck did mother buy this poor man?’ As the other kids and I crowded around him to find out, the teacher showed us the covers of the books that emerged from the wrapping. They were titles like ‘The Ghost Hunter‘, ‘ESP and You, ‘Witches’ and ‘The Lively Ghosts of Ireland’ by Dr. Hans Holzer! Oh no...that is MY father! I couldn't believe it. He wrote those? What the heck does he do for a living? I sank to the lowest point in my chair at that moment. As if to add insult to injury, I fell off that chair to the ground with a thunderous thud! It was at that moment that I wondered if I should switch schools right away or maybe just leave the planet!”

As a Paranormal Researcher with more years of experience than I care to admit and children of my own, I can understand how strange it must have been for Alexandra to face her father’s unusual claim to fame. My own kids always enjoy listening to my radio and television interviews, but it can confuse them at times. After all, I am not exactly dealing with conventional topics. With that in mind, I wondered what Alexandra’s earliest memory of her father’s ghost hunting might be? She told me:

“I was around the age of eleven when my father came bursting into my room announcing he would be on television that evening. He gave me the time, channel and show's name. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Yeah, okay whatever." But when the time came for the show to air, I was not going to get off that easily. He stormed back into my room and announced it was on. My mother, sister and I (and the cat) went into the living room to watch my father on television. He sat there smiling, commenting and folding his arms. Although it seemed really funny at the time, I can now understand his sense of accomplishment as I am now trying to accomplish the same thing. I might have been bored when I watched those shows, but I was also impressed and sensed his fame.”

My paranormal ‘awakening’ occurred at the age of nine. I wondered how and when Alexandra became interested in spirit investigation. Now thirty seven years of age, she says that a ghostly experience of her own at the age of thirty two was what propelled her into the world her father had dominated for so long:

“I was folding laundry and I heard my late aunt's whisper of a voice in my ear. She passed from a rare form of Lymphoma two years before. I had experiences as a child and never felt alone, but this was something foreign to me that suddenly became familiar. As I began to open up and allow her in, the dreams came, then the messages and soon, I was able to read people naturally. I didn't ask for this second sight or to be a medium to help others. My aunt allowed me to get back to my roots and chose the right time for me. I could have picked a better moment, like before I had four children, but that is not how it works.”

Alexandra Holzer has partnered with Carly-Rose Singer and Shira Etzionis to form a kind of Charlie’s Angels threesome of east coast ghost researchers called New York’s Pretty Paranormals. Each one of them brings something to the table of spirit investigations including Alexandra’s vision of what Ghost Hunting should be. “I want to help people,” she tells me. I can understand her vision and admire the fact that she and her partners want to do more than just show up at someone’s house with a bunch of gadgets and an emotional detachment that is unhealthy for all involved.

There is an honesty and sincerity that comes across when you speak with the youngest daughter of Hans Holzer. She is motivated, enthusiastic and with as many goals as she has talents, she is so much more than just the daughter of a famous Ghost Hunter. You’ll be seeing a lot more of Alexandra Holzer. She hopes to create and host a television show about the paranormal and I cannot think of anyone better suited to do that. She’s also a prolific author with several books currently available and more on the way.

Chapter Eight: I Won't Believe In UFOS Until One Lands In The Middle Of New York City - Oops, One Did!

I have heard it said a thousand times: “I won’t believe in UFOs as alien spacecraft until one lands in the middle of a large city!” Would you be surprised to know that it’s already happened at least twice?

I have heard it said a thousand times: “I won’t believe in UFOs as alien spacecraft until one lands in the middle of a large city!” Would you be surprised to know that it’s already happened at least twice? Let’s begin with a landing in New York City which took place in March of 1989.

Queens is one of the five Boroughs of New York City. It’s located on Long Island and connected to Manhattan Island, which is what most people think of as New York City, by bridges and tunnels used by vehicles and mass transit. Kissena Park is located in the Flushing part of Queens, just off the Long Island Expressway.

The park is a large open area that includes a lake and hosts lots of recreational activities. It’s surrounded by houses, buildings, businesses and tens of thousands of people. A bus route runs along 164th Street and affords a fabulous view of the lake. On March 9. 1989, a group of Seniors were among the passengers on the northbound Q65 bus returning from bingo at a Flushing health facility around 9 pm. As Kissena Lake came into full view, the bus driver and passengers noticed an object glowing and moving slowly near the ground on the opposite side of the lake from their position.

The bus driver pulled over thinking this might be some sort of a helicopter or small plane making an emergency landing in the park. He had a radio on board and could easily report the incident. Despite the fact that no one could believe what they were seeing, the object was clearly a glowing disc-shaped craft that gently hovered about the ground. Turning off the bus engine to listen for noise, no one heard anything but the sound of nearby cars rushing by.

Once everyone saw what the object was, denial set in. The bus driver told everyone to be seated, started the bus and drove off continuing his route. But the Seniors were concerned. After arriving home, one of them called me. As someone who has been researching paranormal events for many years, the media occasionally took an interest in my work. It was my good luck that a local newspaper had just ran an article about me in the past weekend’s edition and published my hotline number for reporting UFO Sightings or other strange events.

Because I was already out investigating another sighting, I didn’t get the message until very late that night. I called the female witness early the next day and headed over to see her. She agreed to accompany me to the park and point out everything that happened. We were both surprised to find the park filled with NYC Police! The scene of the sighting was unavailable until later in the day.

When we finally got a look at it, we found a circular area of dead grass that was about fifteen feet in diameter. In some areas of the circle we found some odd material that was very sharp. I asked Ted Benitt, a professor in the Physical Sciences Department at Nassau Community College on Long Island, to examine the material. He felt it had been super-heated in some way and through some process he had never seen before. In still other parts of the circle it seemed as though the ground had been drained of all moisture and almost crystallized.

A nearby tree which witnesses said had been touched by the object started dying just on one side (the side the object had touched) and nearby old style outside metal lamps that lighted a walkway around the lake were unusually magnetized compared to any others in the park. Several smaller and less affected circular areas of dead grass appeared later giving us the idea of some sort of a delayed affect on the grass. As if trying to cover the incident up, park officials tried planting grass over the circles several times, but it always died. A few months after the event they dug up most of the area and replaced the top soil.

After spending a week investigating the incident, I decided to write a press release to find out if any other people had seen the object. The Associated Press picked up the release and the story went international. Although a bit more publicity then I had planned on or wanted, we did find a number of additional witnesses. I had held back some small details about the sighting as a litmus test for witness credibility.

As the investigation progressed, it became apparent that UFOs had been seen over that area for some time and definitely on the night in question. Credible witnesses included police officers, airline pilots and an air traffic controller. Even years after that event, in 1999-2000, there were a number of UFO sightings in the immediate area of the park and just beyond. In 2002 a number of pilots flying into LaGuardia Airport reported radar contact with an unknown object.

Not to be out done, Russian experienced a similar event later in 1989. Tass, the official Russian news agency, reported that on September 27, 1989 a strange craft was seen by boys playing soccer at a park in Voronezh, a Russian City of 900,000 people. The object landed, tall creatures came out and seemed to threaten the boys who ran away. While the teens were the only ones to see the creatures, the object was seen by thousands of other people in the area. Some trace physical evidence was said to have been found, but that part of the investigation was quickly hushed up. Interestingly enough, this and other events later caused the Russian Federation to announce that they believe Aliens exist and that some UFOs are objects of extra-terrestrial origin.

Epilogue

In the end, TRUTH is really all about what you want to believe. Not everyone is ready for the truth to be found in unexplained events. They try all kinds of ways to explain it away or ignore it, but sometimes that just isn't possible: Especially if the paranormal or unexplained has somehow managed to affect your own life. I hope that you have enjoyed this book and invite you to view my others at http://jsi4.tripod.com/js/storejs.html

Check out more books by The UFO Guy at http://jsi4.tripod.com/js/storejs.html